The rubber mats do keep the shavings and dirt floor from 'co-mingling' so they do help to keep the shavings dry since they are not sitting on the dirt which can hold some humidity any time it is above freezing. The coop is in the middle of a shed, probably very early 1900's, (left in the picture) ell (any building attached to another building is called an ell, even if there is no 'L' shape and not to be confused with an ell in plumbing terms) on a mid 1800's bank barn. All water that runs off the uphill side of the roof on the original barn runs (right to left in the picture) through the shed, the shavings have been been soaked a few times in prior years when the rain was heavy (only owned it 2.5 years). Prior owners put drain pipe IN the stalls rather than catching it on the uphill side of the ell in the original barn. They didn't even bother to put in a bed of gravel for the water to collect in and be taken away by the pipe. Not a lot of brilliance there and there would still be water in the stalls and alley even if they had. Water ALWAYS takes the easiest path. I dug a ditch in the floor of the original barn to try and catch most of the water and divert it. Had major reconstruction done last spring, summer and into the fall on half the house (2 mid 1800's buildings put together probably in the late 1800s) which included a new poured concrete foundation so I had the excavator dig a curtain drain on the high side of the original barn and pipe it to the pond (would be lower left in the picture if it could be seen). We will see if that solves the problem. Did still have water collected by the ditch in the barn floor this spring when the melting snow/ice couldn't get down through the frozen ground to the drain so clearly a similar curtain drain inside the original barn is in order. Being inside the barn, it wouldn't be covered over with ice and snow. The real solution would be to put a poured concrete foundation under the barn with a foundation drain and lifting the barn a foot so THROUGH the barn would NOT be the easiest path when the ground is frozen. $$$$$$$$ !!!!!
BUT - consider my coop is NOT a raised affair. There is no need for the mats in a coop that does not have a dirt floor.
Picture taken when some structural work (as in "keep it from falling down for some years") was being done 2 years ago. The sill on the original barn was cracked about 8' left of the 'corner board' mid picture and the corner had dropped about 18". There was no real support under the post and in a post and beam building the ONLY things that MUST have support are the posts. The sills just keep the posts from pulling apart and give something to nail the wall material to. Whoever put the shiplap 'novelty' siding on the barn probably did so around the 1930's when it was popular. The carpenters had to take some of it off to lift up the building indicating that corner had dropped a LONG time ago and the horizontal siding was put on without fixing the drop. Don't know when the beam cracked, probably some time later as the lack of support took its toll, In any case, the siding was put back on so don't be concerned with the mess
Great, BA's and EE's it is... now to find them locally for a good price, at least the BA's, we have a lot of EE's (even though they call them Aracauna or Americaunas... don't ask). As for the feeder, ummm what exactly is a Street Ell... even DH doesn't know and he's pretty knowledgeabe about those sorts of things lol. We do have to shake it to get the feed down in, so a different way would be great.
I'm not saying YOU have to have BAs and EEs, just that *I* like them best of the 5 breeds I got. Plenty of people like other breeds too
A street ell, AKA street 90, has a long radius curve so what ever is flowing through it (water by design of course) isn't slowed much by the turn. There is one in this post from a couple of pages back:
Compare that to this (from Lowe's website):
If you are already using a street ell and still having issues with the feed not making the turn MAYBE using a pair of 45s with some amount of straight pipe between them would let the feed flow better. Of course, that would mean you need enough vertical and horizontal room to do so. In any case, the feed isn't going to flow far once it hits the horizontal pipe. I doubt it gets past the first hole in istrits design. Given the feed isn't really 'flowing' except when you pour it into an empty feeder, the distance it will move as the birds eat is a function of pipe diameter and distance from the vertical to the hole in the horizontal pipe. I think that is why you will mostly see "pan" style feeders where there are more than a few birds. The distance from vertical is almost none. I made this from a piece of PVC pipe I had and the plastic bottom for a pot. But you obviously need a fair amount of space for this type.
The parrots and crows are no threat to the chickens, but those hawks sure are!
Bruce
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They will be getting a nice cozy house long before winter. I figure they will start laying in about 10 weeks so that is our deadline.
